Expert: Paul Johnson - 12/27/2007

Question
is it possible that a child who exhibited fairly normal for age group behavior other than a speech delay at the age of 7 and maintained regular checkups with a physician as well as attended speech therapy classes and an early intervention educational program to be diagnosed with autism at the age of 10 although no other experts other than the one who diagnosed him with this disorder considered autism as a diagnosis previously? I would like to know if a developmentally delayed child at a young age could be conditioned to display signs of autism for diagnostic purposes and if an expert in this field would be able to tell the difference if they did not know the complete history of the child. at the age of 7 the child did not display any of the symptoms used in diagnosis for autism other than a speech delay, is it possible to manifest more symptoms over a period of time as the child gets older? (sorry two questions there)

Answer
Thank you for your thoughtful question.
In considering he answer we must first keep in consideration that Autism is a developmental disorder.
This is key because it implies that the child is born with symptoms of the disorder. Condition are always a by product of the way a disorder is manifest.

So it is possible the conditions the child was in through the ages of 7 to 10 helped bring out Autistic traits to the point where it could be recognized and diagnosed. I believe this is not a likely scenario. Autism has strong symptoms that is usually recognized at the age of 3 or so.
The older the child becomes the more the symptoms can be recognized since it is a developmental disorder.

Because Autism is a developmental disorder more symptoms do not become manifest over time. They just escaped recognition at an earlier age. A good diagnostician would review his entire developmental history before they would rule in or out the possibilities of Autism.

A second opinion might be the way to go with a clinician that is well familiar with the child's entire developmental history. If they do not see Autism than you might consider the clinician that diagnosed Autism as acting independently. The thought of conditioning a child to appear Autistic is far fetched.